Prepare a trip before the week of departure

The aim is to remove decisions from the most tiring parts of travel. Use a written trip brief with a clear owner, then recheck the volatile items immediately before departure.

Two to four weeks before

• Confirm the traveller's actual nationality, residency, entry document, purpose and route. Include transit and re-entry. Chinese heritage does not determine passport privileges.
• Check official travel advice relevant to that nationality and local authority alerts. Review business, legal or personal disputes that could affect the trip.
• Check medical needs, medication import rules and any required approvals with the destination's official channels and a clinician where appropriate.
• Confirm insurance covers the destinations, activities and relevant medical conditions. Ask about disruption, evacuation and crisis assistance in writing.
• Choose accommodation, transport and meeting formats using the actual threat assessment. Plan independent ways to leave a meeting.

During the preceding week

• Review which devices, accounts and signing permissions must travel. Prepare backups and ordinary travel funds without copying reserve secrets.
• Confirm the driver or transport provider through an independent booking channel. Decide how substitutions will be authenticated.
• Give the emergency contact the itinerary, accommodation contact and planned check in windows, with a backup for connectivity failure.
• Save addresses in local script, emergency contacts, offline maps, insurance assistance details and essential documents securely.
• Brief companions and the household team about changes and escalation. Do a short lost phone exercise.

In the last day

Recheck official alerts, weather, airspace and airline operations, medication and document requirements, hotel booking and arrival transport. Check that the emergency contact is actually available. Charge devices and pack necessary medication and chargers appropriately. [S03] [S50]

Reasons to pause or change the trip

A credible unresolved threat; unclear entry or exit eligibility; a serious dispute without legal assessment; unsuitable medical arrangements; inability to communicate or pay for essentials; or an itinerary relying on transport that is no longer operating.

A backup should be executable. An alternative flight is not a plan if you cannot enter its transit point; a driver is not a backup if their dispatch is unreachable; a private jet is not immune to closed airspace.

If the trip is urgent: prioritize legal eligibility, health, communications, a staffed arrival and a reachable emergency contact. Avoid a hurried custody redesign. Reduce optional meetings and public appearances until the basics work.